Perfect Line
by Good Evening
Summary: The lives and expectations of three men as they gracelessly impact each other. Arthur, a self-loathing, pill-popping paranoiac; Francis, the Oedipal gentleman and repressive lover; and Alfred, the directionless light at the end of the tunnel. FrUKFr, USUKUS, VariousXUKXVarious.


The words leave Arthur's mouth before he can stop himself.

"I'm leaving."

They had cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen after a late dinner, and fallen into the sofa for a period drama. Lights on, the screen caught the glare of the lamp behind the couch. Francis' reaction is slow, and he wonders if he's avoiding the answer. He moves his arm from where Arthur is sitting stiffly, uncomfortable for its presence.

"Alright. I'll go to bed, too."

He stands with a grunt and manoeuvres around the coffee table, aiming for the television. It turns off with a click and he stops in the vacuum of sound. Arthur barely breathes.

"I mean I'm leaving you."

Francis stares at him as if he's a caged animal.

"Arthur, it's late."

A hand comes down softly but firmly on his shoulder, and he tenses even more,

"Go to bed and we'll talk tomorrow. If you're angry, I'll take the sofa."

"I'm not sleeping here, tonight."

He says it with more confidence; he has a retreat, and his trump card is waiting in a café down the street. Francis freezes immediately and watches him with stunted awe. He removes his hand and cards through his hair with a sigh, walking over to the table and pulling out a chair, standing behind it like a gentleman. Arthur doesn't move, so he sighs again, and sits, and only then does the man rise and sit across from him.

The streetlight turns his undershirt orange and his golden hair becomes dull.

"You waited for this moment, didn't you?"

Pretrial week. Francis hasn't slept in two nights and last night, much to Arthur's delight, he stayed to work at the courthouse. He'd seen this coming. But, because he likes to think of himself as a proper man, Arthur averts his eyes in shame and self-pity. Francis isn't amused by his silence.

"So. Have you fucked him, yet?"

"Francis," he warns,

"I'm just saying. If he's willing to let you stay, he must be getting something out of it."

Arthur gets up.

"I'm not having this conversation."

"You're the one who started it, just like you started this mess."

"Oh, you'd love to blame it on me, wouldn't you?"

"You just give up, and fuck everybody else; you just want a nanny."

Arthur goes to their room and Francis follows him. He leaves the light off and rifles through their wardrobe for a change of clothes.

"So what, if you don't talk to me, then it's not happening?"

He grabs a shirt and a tie and his reading glasses from the nightstand. He makes for the door, but an arm stops him.

"I'd at least like an explanation."

"I don't owe you anything."

"You owe me eight fucking years, Arthur, and half of all this."

He reaches for the shirt and Arthur drops it to avoid touching him.

"Keep it, then. I'm leaving."

The arm doesn't move and he steps back. He's not good at rejecting people, and neither is Francis. It's why they're standing where they are.

Francis' arm slips and he covers his eyes, dragging his feet as he approaches the bed and sits on it, on Arthur's side. The wary glare coming from across the room makes him feel like his father, and he hangs his head in anger, fists clenched.

"Obviously, you're seeing someone else."

"That's not how this started."

Francis knows, and he wants to swear, to tell him to fuck himself and then touch him again. He just wants to touch him. But he doesn't, as well as he knows that that moment on the couch, with just his arm around him, Arthur was probably screaming at him in his head. Sleeping in the same bed was the last formality. Sometimes he'd wake up and Arthur would be in the kitchen, drinking tea at two a.m., or he'd see light cast from the bathroom hours after they'd had sex, and Arthur would be standing, white as the tile, tears running down his cheeks into a sink filled with vomit. The last time, Francis didn't bother leaving bed.

He closes his eyes and leans back, inhaling all he can of their bedroom; the smells of paper and fabric softener and leather shoes. When he blinks, Arthur is still in the corner by the door, unsure of what to do, and guarded. Francis laughs at himself,

"What, are you afraid I'm going to get violent? Is he waiting in the lobby? Or down the street?"

Arthur visibly shrinks, stepping back a bit, expecting the worst of something he's rarely seen. It's almost an insult; Francis isn't even drunk. He doesn't get drunk anymore. That was part of their neat little 'deal.'

"All I want to know is why. You must give me at least that."

No movement, no change in posture, and then comes the tight, quiet voice, almost like a mouse in the wall. Arthur gulps, and his gaze is strong. He's becoming himself.

"I'm ill."

Francis doesn't move either, and the clock in the living room ticks loudly behind the door. He smiles uselessly,

"Arthur, we've been over this and you didn't want help. I can't _do_ anything unless you _let_ me."

"You've had plenty of chances and you just … you drain me."

"I _drain_ you?"

Francis sits up; Arthur stands his ground.

"I'm ill and a risk and you haven't cared."

"So you're having a midlife crisis, and you want to switch boyfriends to see what it's like to be the older model and not the new one."

Arthur is getting frustrated,

"No, Francis, I'm sick."

Francis stands up,

"So you self-medicate by chasing meds with Irish coffee. I don't _keep_ _wine_ here, anymore because I _know_ you're a risk. There _is no_ cure for cowardice, Arthur."

Arthur's lips purse and he's growing white. Suddenly he wants to stay to fight, but he knows he needs to leaves and that's all he has.

"Do you remember the last time we slept together?"

"I think it would be hard to forget, my dear." Francis retorts drily. Arthur's face reddens like he wants to cry, and as much as Francis likes to spite him and revel in it, he just feels alone, and he wants to be able to hold him again.

"For the past six months, whenever you touched me, I felt sick. When we slept together, I ran to the bathroom and puked until I cried."

He's crying now. He's beautiful when he cries, Francis thinks. Like he needs him. His arms feel empty. Now, he chokes on a breath and tears run in practiced tracks down his face.

"I hate myself when I'm with you."

The world has folded in on itself and left Francis outside. The room chills and feels emptier. His stomach drops and he's reminded of the dread he'd felt when his mother died.

"The visions are worse, and I wake up sweating so madly, I've soaked the sheets halfway across the bed and you barely move. You keep telling me that I'm giving up, but I'm terrified, and I'm alone, and it makes me nauseous when I realise you're fine with that. I'm giving up because I don't have anywhere to go but out, Francis. You checked out the moment you knew I wouldn't sleep with you anymore."

Francis wants to pace like a panther in a cage.

"Arthur, I love you, and I didn't want to smother you. I would **never** _hurt_ you."

His fist hits the wall and he's crying like crazy now, eyes red, teeth bared through his panting,

"Are you fucking **kidding** me?" He shouts, "When someone starts _crying_ in the middle of _sex_, you **stop**! When someone flinches when you touch them, you ask if they're **alright**! When the love of your life dreams he's being tortured, and sees fucking_ monsters_ in his waking hours, you help. Him. Through it!"

"Then why stick around at all? Why not fuck Mr. All-American and live happily ever-after with some closeted retard?"

Arthur rubs his face with his wrist, and it's so thin and pale, Francis' heart is breaking, and he wants to kiss it and warm it more than he wants life, itself.

"I'm not okay, Francis. I'm not okay living here, I'm not okay being messed up,"

"Arthur, you're _not_ messed up,"

Reading glasses fly into his chest and Arthur looks as insane as he says.

"**FUCK YOU**! Fuck everything about you! Fuck eight wasted years!"

He's so small, clawing at his shirt as Francis barely struggles to restrain him, and the legs kicking out as he's pinned to the wall, then the bed.

"Get the fuck off of me!" He screams, thrashing, crying, as Francis finally lets go and catches a fist aiming for his nose. He holds it. Arthur is close. This is the most they've touched in six weeks, and it's driving him mad.

"Arthur, calm down!" He tries, willing some sense into him; trying desperately to not be his father. Arthur shoves him away and scrambles for the door, swinging around the corner and fumbling with the lock at the front entrance. Francis listens to it jiggle and open, then slam shut. He listens to the thundering footsteps, and the door to the stairwell, and the hurried jumping down the steps. The warm August night echoes with the front door bursting open, and Arthur's lost steps into the street. He hears sobs and angry shouts until the steps grow quieter; quick and light. He's running away, Francis thinks, and he won't look for the life of him, but he listens, and as the sound grows fainter, he crumbles a little more, until his ears ring in the emptiness of the room, and his body is numb.

* * *

It's been a good day. It's Saturday and the first bottle of wine in two months. Francis has received a commendation from his boss and is first in line for a management position. After nine years' dedicated work, he's hellbent on getting it. He pours them each a glass and glides right by the pill bottle on the counter by the sink. He hands Arthur his and settles in next to him, happy, red-faced, excited for his new life. Arthur toasts with a weak smile and says he's tired, but that's nothing new. Francis kisses his forehead and talks about his day.

When they've emptied the bottle, rather, when Francis has refreshed his glass for him until he can barely stand, they migrate towards the bedroom and Arthur falls into him, breaths heavy and heart slow. Francis licks his ear and he shudders, body tightening. The lights are always on, these days, but tonight they were too smashed to bother. He's pulled toward the bed and falls again. Francis drags him up between his legs and attacks his mouth with sloppy kisses. Arthur pulls away to be met with hands pulling off his sweater. He blinks and his belt is gone. Francis pushes him onto his back in the sheets and laves his neck, biting it, leaving bruises from his ear to his collar bone as one hand expertly undoes his button and zipper while the other lightly strokes his wrist. Francis can circle it with his thumb and little finger, it's so thin. Holding them both above Arthur's head is like restraining a child.

He takes out his cock and moves down, nipping at a lean chest, hands grazing over sharp hips as his lips rest on the tip and he licks it. Arthur bucks involuntarily, but tightens his legs. With some confusion, Francis forcefully parts them, engulfing the head and following his lips with his hand. Arthur grunts, voice high and muffled by a wandering palm, but Francis pulls them both down and holds them at a pale stomach; this is the one time Arthur has to make noise for him. He's not going to miss it for the world.

He leaves the cock in his hand and pumps it, crawling back up to a red ear and whispering,

"Did you clean yourself like I asked?"

Arthur wobbles in his hold and refuses to face him, but nods, back bent oddly, hair wild with sweat. Francis leaves him for a moment and he huddles on the bed, breathing harshly, knees together but forcibly relaxing. A dip jostles him and a hot body covers him. Lips return to his ear and the bottle snaps open.

The fingers are cold and he bucks again as they trail along his backside, holding his voice in at the expense of breathing. The room is dark and moving around him and Francis' smile goes from sensual to wicked. He trembles and closes his eyes as he is penetrated, and Francis is rough because he knows he can take it; he likes it. How couldn't he, after the things he's done?

He's being moved, and the shapes of shadows claw at his consciousness, whirling and spiking and suddenly Francis' cock is pushing against his lips and he gasps as it enters. The fingers stroke him and plunge deeper, joined by more as his head is shoved into the man's pubic hair and he resists gagging to do his duty. He sees flashes of fire behind his eyes when he closes them, and they're so close to his brain, they burn his optic nerves. He opens his eyes fearfully, whimpering around Francis' cock as musky sweat joins that on his face, and he's turned around and asked if he's good for it, yet. When he feels hands on his cheeks, and that monster sliding slowly into him, he finally breaks, eyes wide, and the nightmares come to life.

He keeps repeating, "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God," and Francis smiles and says that he's sensitive, tonight. He can feel the darkness inside of him, and his lover is as good as a devil, and his love the darkness. His flesh is searing and thrusts push him forward. He grabs the headboard and prays under his breath, mewling pathetically and begging for the visions to stop. The thrusts turn shallow and a jab at his prostate forces his voice from him.

He sobs behind clenched teeth, reared back into dark arms. A face burrows into his neck and he blanches as hands hold him from falling forward, and rub his inner thighs. One works on his nearly-soft erection and its enthusiasm infects him. The thrusts become harder and his eyes close again to visions of torture; surrounded by strange creatures and accosted by one with blue eyes and a blonde beard, yanking his hair back and pounding into him with a bite to the shoulder. Shallow, short, hips darting clumsily as he bounces on the lap of a demon. Fingers feel at his wet hole and prod it, opening it for all to see. They push in by a knuckle, meeting the invasive organ, and pull out to play with his penis.

Francis never stops, and he never forgets that, but he only vaguely knows it's him, and wishes he could see him rather than the monster he's come to represent whenever they're together and alone.

Arthur gasps as the thrusts grow harder, and he's forced onto his hands and knees and fucked raw in front of an audience of shadows. His fists curl in the sheets and he remembers what prayers are, but can't seem to find them. The hips slamming against him come erratically, and then slow and stop, and he wants so badly for it to be over. The condom hits the garbage can and a body sidles up next to his own.

Again, he's turned, and a cock hangs in his face just as a mouth envelopes him, and it prods at his lips until he allows it entrance, and cleans it as he comes, then releases it and pants as it pulls away. Francis drops down next to him and kisses him, and there's some semen left in his mouth and he knows Arthur thinks it's disgusting.

"I love you, God, I love you so much, Arthur," the demon whispers in his ear and the words trail down his body like tongues. Arms hot as fire encircle him and hold him until soft breaths quiet the room. He dozes and wakes for hours, caught in a twilight sleep, agonized and licked by lightning. He jolts up with a loud gasp around three thirty and a puddle of sweat gives rustling sheets a deep voice. He nearly falls out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom, holding his mouth and his stomach as he elbows the light switch and simply bends over.

Eyes closed, it's blood, and he can feel the acid pouring through his heart and sweeping it up in chunks. When he opens them, he sees wine and breakfast from that morning, from when Francis had forced him to eat, thinking his diet was improving just a little with that totalitarian gesture. Arthur is dying and his internment is catered with eggs and toast.

The door opens and there it stands, the Cause, red-eyed and fuming, and Arthur screams as it flies at him, and then he opens his eyes and he's still staring into the sink, tears running down his cheeks, mouth open and slack with drool dripping, diluted with acid. He sobs as more comes up and the visions come and go in the night, and Francis doesn't wake once to stroke his back, or hold his hand, and for the first time, he stops wishing he might come, and revels in his private torment.

* * *

Alfred is a summer breeze on the ocean. He smells like salt and earth and his laughs shake the building and set off chain reactions. He's not as learned or proper as Francis, but he respects everyone, and treats them as equals, and that's something Arthur craves.

So when Arthur feels the warm night turn cold through his nightshirt, and the streetlights play cruel games with his vision, having unassuming, wholly welcoming arms waiting for him is like the light at the end of the tunnel, and Alfred's embrace is so much stronger and even around him. He feels safe from the darkness, and when they walk, Alfred holds his hand or his shoulder, and watches him carefully for another episode, but Arthur smiles in the face of his fear, shaky and awkward, and Alfred is the most empowering thing he's ever felt. Fingers squeeze his hand as a shadow moves over a wall and tips into the lighted street, guessing at his vulnerabilities, and when his lips tremble with fear, Alfred holds him again, and whisks him away.

* * *

Francis is alone in the world.

His father is dead, his brother is dead, and his mother is long dead. Arthur helped him to bury the former two, this past decade, but only served to exhume the last.

He'd seen his mother rolled away under a white sheet with drips of blood following her out the door. She'd locked herself in the bathroom under the pretence of bathing, but there was a hole in the wall, and Francis watched her nervously with his older brother beside him.

She turned on the faucet and waited for the right temperature, weathered fingers caught in a rough cascade of water before she deemed it hot. She stood and removed her chemise, and Francis was young enough to remember her breasts and his brother old enough to snicker. She stood at the basin of the sink as the tub filled and stared emptily into the mirror. Francis knew something was wrong. His mother was never scary. Only his father was scary.

She turned slowly toward the tub and nearly limped toward it, (Francis had watched him beat her again) and she slid into it, already half-dead. She washed her hair, and her body, and finally shaved her legs, and after she was done, she unclipped the razor and held it above her wrist, and sank, eyes open, into the water.

Francis' brother scrambled through the crawlspace like a trapped rat and shouted for their father. Francis knew she would be alright as long as the water kept its tiny ripples. She breathed and blinked as long as it did. And then, quite suddenly, she stopped blinking, and her eyes were blue like his and sad and tired like the women who marched up the hill. She was beautiful, and like he knew her. The water stilled, clear at the surface before the door banged open and his father dragged her out of the tub and slapped her to wake her up, lightly, and grabbed a towel to wrap around her wrist. The water grew pink the moment she moved and Francis froze as he saw her, motionless among the living and the moving, disturbed from her stillness and her final beauty and streaked with pink and death. His father pulled at her from oblivion, but she never moved of her own volition, and she never once blinked. The water rushed against itself, reddened and angry and Francis wanted to look away, but he didn't understand. He saw the anger and the fear and the hate both in the water and his father, and finally pulled his little body from the slot between the tiles, and crawled mindlessly to his room, his brother shrieking in the bathroom for their mother.

With Arthur gone, there is no silence, just a constant hum and ringing in his ears. The fridge clicks on; cats fight outside; the alarm clock buzzes. There is no peace; no moment before death to last forever like he dreams it should. Arthur is the walking end and always has been, from the moment they met, when he looked healthy and young before a thin iron railing thirty stories up, to the last days, when he dragged himself from room to room, unable to work, unable to sleep; filling the apartment with a vacuum of being and void of will.

The world is screaming at him, and he is waiting for the water to still, and for Arthur to come home.

* * *

Arthur doesn't know how to say it. He's only rejected someone once on his own and suffered for it. Francis, for all he knows, is a ticking time bomb.

He occupies the kitchen, most of the time, putting himself to use with menial, mindless tasks like checking the roast, or making tea, or doing crosswords in the nook while he rubs one sleepless night after another from his eyes.

The bathroom is the brightest room in the house, with a low white ceiling and white tiles and vanity lights, as well as the overhead, but he's spent so much time in there, lately, it's losing its pizzazz. The kitchen, second brightest and least conquered, paves the way to the future.

At the moment, it's high noon, when the sunlight trickles into the light shaft before it reaches their apartment in the evening, and he can enter the living room with less than the normal amount of fear. He sits at the table with his tea and his book and thinks he should really bring in the chair by the bookcase, but he doesn't even open the door. He keeps it shut and every light in the room on at all times.

He stays in the kitchen all day, because Francis complained that he wastes electricity, keeping every light on, though that might not matter much, anymore.

He really doesn't know what to say, but Alfred has been coaching him, and offers him guns and knives and even his own presence, if he so desires. So Arthur takes that, and Alfred promises to be near enough to hear him, if he gets too scared. The night will arrive and Francis will come like he always does, though the summer months illuminate him for at least a few hours, and he's smooth and brilliant again, like Alfred simply _is_.

He reclines as much as he can in the straight-backed chair and looks out the window, reading glasses slipping down his nose and magnifying the bloated bags under his eyes. He rubs them again, quickly, hard enough to see painful lights rather than darkness, and blinks rapidly, fighting his own eyelids.

It's gotten worse. Especially when he's alone. If the lights aren't on by the entrance, he doesn't leave for the bathroom until Francis comes home, which can be nine or ten hours. He's taken to drinking very little.

His pills, which Francis picks up because he takes his life upon him like another court case, dwindle in their orange bottle. He pours them onto the table and counts them, arranges them, and then opens the pain killers to make even lines of ten, then a pattern, and then he consumes the difference with a chaser of vodka from a friend at work. If Francis _wants_ to reduce his drinking problem, then so be it. As long as they don't have to talk about it, Arthur knows, quite bitterly, that he's just fine.

But a recluse, as a rule, does not leave the home, so he has Ivan come to him with alcohol and paperwork from an abandoned desk job, and he sets it on the sideboard in the office rather than let the outside world touch him with shadows in pages. There's nothing good to read, in there, anyway.

Perhaps he should stop trying, he thinks, and simply stay until he kills himself. The pattern on the table, four-pill diamonds in red and white, beckons him enough every day that he keeps both bottles close in case of emergency suicide. Lord knows when he might want to off himself. It could happen any second of any day, but he might not be able to recognise true yearning beyond his constant fantasies. He has no set opinions; no goals. His life is useless to him, and he slides into that stiff, nasty old chair and thinks red and white really do look wonderful with blue, and blue, to him, is both the sound of laughter and his own failure.

He thinks of Francis and he thinks of Alfred, and he can't figure which is the reason for today's agenda.

* * *

When Francis meets Arthur, he is thirty-four and feeling a bit old. A group of kids had shoved past him on the street and laughed at his neat appearance. They called him a faggot for his long hair and he remembers when it was a _sin_ to not have long hair and a coat and beard. He stalks into his office building and sneaks into the special transfer elevator. He needs a high-altitude smoke to cleanse his mind. Maybe quicken death just a bit, he thinks to himself. When he opens the door to the roof, there is a man standing at the railing, wearing no shoes, wind whipping the browned blood on his collar and the dried dirt on his trousers. His belt is missing and the waistline dips.

Francis is a smooth talker, but this one is beyond him.

"Excuse me!" he says loudly over the wind. It changes direction and carries his bangs across his forehead. He can barely see when the man turns around, gripping the railing that his hands are white through grit and blood, and his face blank with fear.

"Are you alright?" he shouts impotently, tucking his coat against the harsh November wind. The man stares at him, fingers flexing, and answers,

"Yes, I'm fine."

Francis thinks that, as long as he doesn't jump, he can't be blamed, but it is a very quick thought, and his head buzzes with other dreams.

"I'm just up here to smoke! Don't mind me!"

"Easier said than done."

The man turns back to face the cold grey horizon, looking down on the city, and Francis thinks on his feet,

"May I offer you a cigarette?" he shouts, holding one far out in front of him as a gesture of peace. The man doesn't respond at first, then slowly looks over his shoulder.

"I'm just thinking, if I was in your position, I'd really like a smoke!"

A moment of silent disbelief. The man looks cornered as he stands at the railing, so close to the edge, nearly stepped out and yet looking back. Francis is a shrewd businessman, off-hours, and certainly some smooth talker.

"Yes. Yes, I think I would."

It takes him a few moments, but he slowly approaches the ledge with him, and a blast of wind nearly carries the cigarette away. He clutches it between his teeth and futilely attempts to light it.

"Do you want to go inside for a few minutes?" The man stares at him, eyes wild, deep, "Just a few minutes!" He points to the cigarette, "It's hard to light out here!"

He receives some sort of cosmic luck, because the man looks over the edge for one long minute, him shifting nervously in his overcoat, before he turns and says,

"That'd be fine."

Alfred is indiscriminately smart, if that makes sense. He drinks trivia about sports and science and cars and keeps post-it reminders in his datebook about conferences at the library or city hall. He loves learning with crude, overwhelming passion, and refuses to refine it to any one subject.

Which is probably why he isn't getting anywhere in life, at the moment, but he is only twenty-four.

He works as a security guard at Arthur's office and trades friendly fire with Ivan in the form of comic insults. Arthur has tolerated his boisterous laughter for the past two weeks and failed to have gotten the joke. He ducks his head under his hands while sitting at his cubicle. He isn't sleeping again.

The nightmares are getting worse.

"Hey, Art! How's life?"

Arthur looks up, irritated, and tries to sound angry, but only just manages pathetic bitterness.

"Short and thankfully so. Do be quiet, won't you?"

Alfred only smiles,

"Aw, come on. Let me buy you a coffee. Hangovers really are the worst, ain't they?"

That shit-eating grin; those happy-go-lucky blue eyes. Arthur is trying to enjoy his quickening descent into madness and this prat has the gumption to knock him off his pity horse.

"That isn't necessary,"

Alfred leans in too close and his smile softens, eyes twinkling

"You ain't sleepin', right? I have problems, m'self. Now if you won't let me buy you a coffee, can I at least get a smoke break?"

Arthur doesn't move. Alfred doesn't seem to expect him to.

"I… guess that would be alright."

* * *

Arthur's nicknames at home were less than pleasant. His father discretely relocated him to the States where a reputation purchased in the schoolyard couldn't follow him. His peers are sons of lords and already becoming doctors and lawyers and pursuing political careers. He knows because his mother reminds him of their successes. In America, he learns of new words, but slides under the radar when he haunts clubs and disappears for hours into lavatories and backrooms.

He's been in college for a few years, holding down an internship at the trade building in the West District. He only came here to go to school, though it's hardly affordable, but his father is a friend of someone above the forty-fifth floor, and that's good enough to earn him some legacy points. He pushes paperwork discarded by day employees and spends his nights shredding files in the breakroom. In the day, he studies finance and international relations like a good son and calls his mother once he returns home from work.

Who needs sleep?

His studio is bought with his own cash, the little there is of it, because it's as far from under his father's thumb as he can buy, and he's never been clever enough to run away successfully. It might be why he despises his education and urges himself to skip class and stay home; grades bought on daddy's bills reek to high heaven. He goes to the office and plays the game because it shortens his time studying by a year. Once he has his degree, he reminds himself when the pressure piles on, he can leave, and he can throw it away as he pleases. Maybe work in a library for the rest of his life, or become an English teacher; as far from business as possible.

His choice in living space is uninformed, and his eagerness to escape the leash around his neck leads him to a dank building on the south side. He learns what drug dealers look like, and because he's a rich boy, he enjoys the adrenaline of being so close to what his father has called the "scourge" and "infections" of society. He basks in the fluorescent light of laundromats and gobbles street food that he gets himself sick at least once a month. He kicks garbage on the sidewalk and hunches in disguise, trying to look mean or at least like a nobody, and not the prissy little rich boy on vacation in the States. He has no intention of returning home. He never did.

So one night when he finds his inbox overflowing, he decides morosely to come in early, and wonders if this lifestyle isn't starting to get to him. Joe Blow's callused approach at a meaningless existence at least offers him some apathetic advantage. Arthur is left mesmerized in the busied wake of his overseers, arms full of work, confused and frightened almost by his own shadow.

Distractions and fancies like this nearly cost him his life.

It's early November and Halloween candy has gone on fire sale. He passes a minimart and thinks he'll buy some awful energy drink to keep awake. As he bounces his bag in hand and steps into the office, he's yanked into a conference room and bludgeoned that he sees white before he sees black.

Six hours later, he makes his way to the top with a special elevator key from his father and stands at the edge of the railing, staring out into the city and singling out his apartment, his college, his library, before he grips the rail and thinks about swinging his leg over, if he could only move it. He stands uselessly at the last exit and his one desire when the door bangs open in the wind and footsteps sound off behind him.

"_Excuse me!"_


End file.
